–

It’s so very oppressive, middle class and unnecessarily British when people tell you not to have emotions. “Keep calm and carry on?!”, Not only is this a ridiculous thing to ask of an emotional being, (which we all are as human beings), it can also be extremely damaging.

It has been said to me several times by some other humans whom I admire that one must lean into the struggle.

For so long this seemed impossibly scary to me, however, that is exactly why this idea makes sense; acting through fear of the unknown is a pretty consistently useless way of being which leads to procrastination. So why fear the struggle?! Lean into it! Be it, embody it and express it. These are all ways in which we can process what is happening and move through it.

Instead of cowering at the towering mound of shit that faces us, roll in it, be a dog, eat it, dance it, write it and shout it. SHIT SHIT SHIT, I AM THIS PILE OF SHIT!!! And it will slowly but surely disintegrate and become something else, often revealing a gem in the centre which you can keep to help you in the future.

So with this in mind and the fact that being in Edinburgh has significantly cut my summer short by being a murky grey abyss that is the north north; I have had to find ways of moving through emotions as I can feel depression and flatness trickling it’s way into my loins.

I am moving through this by BEING DRAMATIC!

Being the very drama that my brain invents to smack me to the floor and tell me I’m an eternal fuck up who will never achieve their dreams and die desperately unsatisfied.

So…

I thought I would create a sensory based “BE DRAMATIC!” checklist which we can all use and adapt to our own needs to help us through times of melancholy and deep depression. I have frequently found music, colours, dressing and movement to be highly useful and mostly manageable forms of catharsis in times of need…

1. EAT SOMETHING GREEN! – Broccoli is basically witchcraft! It’s protein, it’s fibre, it’s nutrients! It’s low calorie, it’s high energy, cheaper than a prozac and without the increased risk of suicide and long term liver damage.

2. MATCH THE SKY! – Look like a fucking cloud! BE GREY, BE BLUE, BE STORMY AND THUNDEROUS!! BE SWIRLY AND AGGRESSIVE, BE TORN UP AND FALL OUT OF YOUR OWN ASS WITH YOUR OUTFITS!!

3. LISTEN TO “BOBBY VINTON”! – My particular faves being, “Blue Velvet”, “There, I’ve said it again”, and “Tell me why”. Alternatively you could give Roberta Flack’s version of “Killing me softly” a bash on repeat, or go for something a bit less codependent and a tad more cunty like Lou Reed, Patti Smith or Hole.

4. BE DRAMATIC! – Serve some banshee realness: WAIL, RUN, LIFT WEIGHTS LIKE YOUR ON ROIDS, SCREAM AT THE SKY, SHOUT AT THE SEA, CRY RIVERS, STAMP ON MOUNTAINS, and when your all done sit with an ACTUAL pen and paper and write how fucking dramatic your life is like a teenage girl in heartbreak. I dare you! Overcome that masc mask and do something for YOURSELF!

5. BE SELFISH! – Sometimes you have to be selfish, you have to stop people pleasing and trying to give to others and give to yourself. Depression will rob you of all your vitality and resources, so it’s important to constantly stock up and replenish. It is taking me years to master this part but I am getting better at it each year I experience depression. Eat the foods that are good for YOU! Read the books that are good for YOU! Listen to the people who are good for YOU! And write down how YOU want your life to look! DREAM A DREAM, BE A TRAGEDY, COVER YOUR ROOM IN BRING ME THE HORIZON POSTERS, HAVE 3 BATHS A DAY WITH PATCHOULI CANDLES AND HIMALAYAN ROCK SALT, AND MASTURBATE UNTIL YOUR BITS ARE RED.

All of these things are cathartic and don’t involve DRUGS or ALCOHOL. They will not give you a hangover or a comedown or worsen your situation with mind and mood altering quick fixes.

The worst thing that can happen is that you gave it a go.

It is not foolproof and sometimes we can’t get out of bed, but when we can this is what has reduced the risk of bed paralysis for me.

So why not try it?!

Lean into the struggle and BE DRAMATIC!

–

Written and Recommended by Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”

xXx

–

All written material is copyright of Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”.

Photo by Darren Black.

–

I do many things in life, I explore many areas and disciplines and I span across many boxes. Some would say I have fingers in many pies, I certainly want to taste them all.

But when it comes to one of my favourite things I do, STRIPPING, I find that many people are all too often trying to skip around the word and instead come up with a label to somehow dampen, soften the edges and make Stripping into a more manageable concept for a tame palette.

I have been called a drag queen, a dancer, a host, a freak, a weirdo, a scary monster and an “eugh wtf is that?!”. But the one that I think is most frustrating is the term “Performance Artist”.

The difficulty here is that this may in a literal sense be a fairly accurate term to describe what I and many other strippers do. We perform a form of Art. We question, we provoke, we please and displease and we are aesthetically interesting. Further to this, because I do not present as a “normal”, looking stripper, crossing genders and wearing “non-sexy” and sometimes “scary” items, it must somehow be, “more intellectual”, or “less sleazy” than “normal” strippers? When really I’m just stripping / exotic dancing all the same.

The problem, however, is the social understanding of the term, “Performance Art”, and all the extra baggage that comes with it.

There can be an air of pretence around the phrase; “Performance Art”, is something that can only be understood by “Art” people from “Art” backgrounds and “Art” institutions. It is hierarchied and exclusivized, and sticks it’s nose up at those who don’t relate. It adds excitement and mystery where it is not due and simply leads to disappointment to those expecting me to cake myself with acrylic paint to grunge or to bleed for 900 hours in a gallery space, (all things which are interesting and legitimate also), but are not stripping.

I strip.

I take my clothes off and dance in a sexually provocative way for the pleasure of myself and others.

Most of the time I love it. It fills me with adrenaline, I feel sexy, I feel powerful, I feel desired and I, (even though it earns a lot less than a gender normative stripper), I can make more than a minimum wage doing something I enjoy, all whilst listening to great music and meeting new people.

Like anything that makes one feel this way, it can also be addictive and it requires a strong set of boundaries to make sure you are still doing it for a motivation that spiritually suits you and sometimes we need a break to reset and replenish.

Stripping is sex work. It is making money from your sexual energy and your body. It is an exchange of pleasure and desire and is completely and legitimately just as ok as any other job.

For many queer people, sex work, drag or performance is like the equivalent to a waitressing or reception roll in a corporate environment. The difference is that queer people are not free to be themselves in those environments so they found other ways and means to make enjoyable basic livings.

Most importantly, we should understand that Stripping is not a gutter job; at least not in the context in which I exercise it. It is fine, it is not all of my wildest dreams but it does not destroy me and make me sick like other minimum wage jobs that give zero hours contracts and don’t pay you on lunch breaks and give you late/early/late shift patterns and ask you to constantly lie and disrespect your needs and still you can’t pay your rent let alone buy lunch.

It is OK to be SEXY! Dancing around a pole and undressing IS SEXY; it is not “just for fitness purposes” and we should not have to oppress our sexuality because society has for some reason deemed sex evil and wrong and sordid and backdoor and underground and alternative and nasty.

Being slutty can be fun, it can be healthy, stripping can be cathartic and freeing, it can also be abusive and corrupt but so can all areas of life. It all depends on how you exercise it and who you’re trying to shunt the blame on to. Office jobs exploit and kill too. And it is up to us to take individual responsibility for our actions as much as possible.

And it is therefore OK to call it Stripping!

I am a Stripper.

I make art too. I also write and converse and dance and send emails and eat broccoli and binge on milkshake like every other cunt.

But please can we stop trying to make something socially acceptable with masking terminology that detracts from the core of what something actually is.

I am sexy, I am naked, I am dancing, I am a human.

I have boundaries, I am learning, I am growing and though some people may not respect this and instead of attempting to understand it they instead abuse you with (spanking) = HITTING you, the work is still ok.

But constantly being swayed and diverted from your truth because society can’t cope with it is so frustrating and exhausting. How are we ever supposed to progress if everything is recycled back into the muck of homogenised, capitalistic, hate driven conservativity?!

I AM A STRIPPER, I AM NOT A PERFORMANCE ARTIST!

And ya’ll can deal.

–

Thought and expressed by Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”

xXx

THESE EARLY 1920’s COWBOY CHAIRS

+ THESE MEN

–

THANKS UNIVERSE

Love Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”

xXx

–

Margate you make my dick flop

Not one stick of rock in your watery abyss to make my man clit tick

Not even a married daddy semi-muscled Claire and Harry to play in this closet

When I’m in you I shrink to the size of a Hobbit.

Margate you make my dick flop

My flip flop flops off and grazes my thirsty nose

Hunting for a munting in this cunting English Rose

The garden of Kent?

More like a one man tent with a teaspoon of sorry soil and some bent depressed water cress

Your tidal are tidy but your Grindr is a mess.

Margate you make my dick flop

My pricks chopped my ticks tocked

My dicks not working not even hurting no schlurping

Just aching godforsaken that I might ever get a bloody dong up my ass

Please Margate save me from this mouth drought

Send a spout of moisture from your arid arcades

Give me middle eastern Mary’s with buckets and spades

Give me straight boy trade for days and days

Please Lord give me aid.

Margate you make my dick flop

It’s not rocket science

Just a pocket of compliance could stem the reliance on my hand

Would it really be too much to add some dick to the bland.

–

Written by Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”

xXx

–

All written material is copyright of Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”.

OFTEN ON STAGE

–

Figs in Wigs are a one of a kind, London based group of humans who live in a Morgue and make things that other people sometimes watch .

Recently I saw their newest work, “Often Onstage”, in the Pleasance Dome at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and jeejzush I was not disappointed.

The focus of the show is on the happenings and mish mash of when your not actually on stage yet but preparing, faffing and fucking up, with a particular political and personal focus on, “What are we doing with our lives? How long can we keep this up for? What is success and how can we achieve it?”.

In this show the Figs cheekily poke fun at attitudes and remarks often made towards people who manage to survive in life on the outskirts of the machine and are not entirely part of any normative system. “When will you get a proper Job?!”, “What do you actually do?!”, “I don’t get it”. Figs in Wigs are not a 9 to 5; they are artists, dancers, actresses and singers but sort of not all at the same time.

They are a kind of visual ecstasy, a candied tumble dryer of idealogical backwash who take banality and swaz it up into something that resembles a Zap lolly. Both tasty and murky, “Often Onstage”, never really gives you what you want but at the same time you want more and you’ll keep eating and never be full.

It’s the cheap cocaine of performance art. Comparable to Michael Clarke, but somehow easier to digest and without the perfect technique, all adding to the magical uncomfortability of this wonderful show! And we haven’t even discussed their revolutionary gender destruction and contemporary queer values.

I can safely say I am a fully fledged Figs in Wigs addict and I got my fix but didn’t at this performance of “Often Onstage”. SO GO SEE IT!! It’s on at 4:10pm everyday for the rest of the run!

–

Written and Recommended by Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”

xXx

–

WHAT DO WE THINK?

Swearing… My fucking mum hates it, teachers, police, and institutions seem to not like it either, but the thing that seems to like it least, however,  is cunting technology.

My mum gave up caring, teachers can’t be arsed but my computer and phone are bloody adamant to stop me from swearing or using other forms of slang.

Why is this? Is the fucking computer offended? Has it developed fucking feelings? Or is it just another twatted control mechanism from the higher powers to disruptively police the way we communicate on our dickhead devices.

So my question is, does swearing make us feel more human?!

Is it the last untainted literary frontier freeing humanity from technological balls and chains? Do slang and curse words help us to separate ourselves from the digital world, giving us just a tiny bit of space for our brains to do some real life actual communication without the influence of agenda’s, cookies and algorithms?!

Who knows?! I certainly have a feeling it might though. So fuck you you fucking cunts! I’m a free bitch and I can communicate how I fucking want, even if I have to incorrect the word 4 times before you get the bloody point!!

–

Thought by Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”

xXx

TIME TO STEP IT UP!

–

Come on retail it’s time to step it up. The gender revolution is no longer fresh news. We are in full swing and non-binary and trans awareness is becoming more and more visible in the mainstream every day.

So why are we still being forced to choose a gendered title? Why is this still an issue? What purpose does it have when I choose a title other than to define me as something I do not relate too. It doesn’t work for data collection if you are asking someone to write something down just to tick a box they don’t belong in!

And if it’s to identify yourself for card purchases then the banks need to step it up too. I am not a Mr, I am not a Mrs or a Miss or a Ms, I not a Doctor or a Lord or a Dame either. I am a Ted, that is all.

Several times in the last few years when I have made purchases from stores I have been asked my title and there was no option to decline having one or to choose something more relevant like “Mx”, which thanks to Justin Vivian Bond is officially recognised in the English Oxford Dictionary as a title.

I was particularly shocked at the kind of stores which required me to choose a binaried title, the first one being “Selfridges” on Oxford street in London, who have an A-gendered section throughout the store. It is wonderful and revolutionary to have pioneered this decision for such a prominent retail leader; however, it seems somewhat careless and blatantly negligent to have ignored the fact you have to choose Mr or Mrs when making a purchase elsewhere in the store.

The second was a “Saint Laurent” store in, (the hell hole that is), Beicester Village Retail Village. Catwalks are often the first place to question and blend gender so why are our stores still asking us to choose? Especially high fashion ones such as Saint Laurent who really have no excuse to be ignorant in such cases.

Finally, the one that led me to writing this article was, “House of Fraser”, today. I was ordering a non-gendered fragrance, yet had to choose my gender at the till with no option of “other” – which also has negative connotations yet is sometimes better than being forced to choose something.

Perhaps to many this is a non-issue, but this is exactly the sort of negligence that makes these oppressive classifications OK. The impact of this kind of forceful choosing is viciously underground; it makes it OK to look at non-binary people as other, as alternative, as needy and pathetic and less than, and this is NOT OK! It leads to bullying, hate, ignorance and death.

We are all human, we are all nature and all part of the cosmos, we share what is in existence, we feed from the soil and we were all born from the vagina of another human. So why are we still boxing and othering, especially in a retail environment, places in which we are supposed to be free to express ourselves aesthetically.

It’s time to step up and make some changes. So come on retail, give us Mx, give us Ze, Give us Ind, M, Misc, Mre, Msr, Myr, Pr, Sai, Ser, Sher, Ve, Hen, Shim, SHmale, Kale, Alien, Next Level Bitch and Kitty Kat Pow!

–

Thanks Universe

Love Ted Rogers”Artpornblog”

xXx

THIS CHAIR

+ THIS MAN

THANKS UNIVERSE

–

Love Artpornblog

xXx

–

HIGH STREET

You don’t know what the word means
You couldn’t even conceive it if you tried a zillion dreams over
Scrolling memes
You could just google it
You should just move and sit
over there
Fuck off and comb your shit hair
Your tactics scare me
Your ass pics glarey
Your mastic sticks like the Virgin Mary’s shat
Your story’s flat
Your husbands fat
Your style is whack
And that man there just ran over your cat
Freddy
Well Teddy ain’t gonna give you a hug
Coz your aspiration in life is to buy a slogan mug and support slave labor
I hope that Topshop flavour sticks to your greedy gums
With your daughter and mum rituals
Chummy chum chums
No funds is no fun
There’s no gun big enough
To shot this down and stop the pigs from stuffing
Shitting and huffing and chuffing
Guffing down Princes street
Fuel the fire where fathers treat their princesses to pretzels
Schmetzels wet feels
These set meals
A sket feels
Lol
No they don’t
That’s why they do it
The more you whore
The more you chew it
I like to chew it chew it
I like a big dick too
Don’t we all just have the flu?
I hope so
I grope so
I rope so freely my frilly neck to a hope so needy
Cheesy cheese me a freeby
Easy
Don’t wanna get too steezy
You might show someone up
You might burn that gut
I can’t wait for the day when all the fucking shops are shut!

Written by Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”
xXx

All written content is copyright of Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”.

–

MANGLARE

You’re looking at me like you hate yourself.
Like you’ve never seen anything other than what’s on that 1 same shelf.
I don’t know what you are.
My primate misshapen brain is straining.
Craning it’s 5 necks at my fine crepes
Your sex is questioned
Your next question
Not to mention is can I give you all my attention
Can I touch your piece
Just not now my niece is watching
My crotch clocks tocking
My balls are knocking
On your sweet door
Your sweeped floor is gonna get dirty
Hurty don’t hurt me
Just eat Ma beef jerky
Your nerdy your cool
I kicked your kind in the head at school
But now I’m craving your zest
Just like I craved your test scores
My best whore impression is in session
I want your style
I want your street
I want every heart beat you own but I can’t have it coz I never learnt to feel
I made fire I made the wheel
But I didn’t make emotions
There’s a fucking commotion in my man loins
My man groins itching for a bitching
Good suck
A quick fuck a ring donut
A vegan cronut
You will go nuts
Just don’t tut
Don’t sigh don’t tell anyone I cried in desperate screams when you split my straight man seams
All my dreams just came true
Coz I glared so dirtily at you.

Written by Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”
xXx

All written content is copyright of Ted Rogers “Artpornblog”.